Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, data, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems. Multiple-access wireless communication systems may include multiple geographically overlapping networks employing multiple radio access technologies (RATs).
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communication system can simultaneously support communication for multiple mobile devices. Mobile devices may, in some examples, be called access terminals, user equipments (UEs), mobile stations, and the like. Each mobile device communicates with one or more base stations or access nodes via transmissions on forward and reverse links. The forward link refers to the communication link from the base stations to the mobile devices, and the reverse link refers to the communication link from the mobile devices to the base stations.
Due to data traffic, channel characteristics, or mobility of mobile devices, a need frequently arises for a particular mobile device to transition between different access nodes and/or networks. This process is complicated by the various states that a mobile device can be in for battery savings or channel efficiency (e.g., idle, active, discontinuous reception/transmission). This process is also complicated by the presence of different RATs. For example, different RATs may employ different techniques for determining acceptable access nodes and/or frequencies for handover. Accordingly, improving inter-RAT mobility performance may be useful in improving mobile device and/or network performance such as data transfer integrity and mobile device power consumption.